


Dislocated

by unbeldi



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 12:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6610753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbeldi/pseuds/unbeldi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nephrite doesn't handle pain well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dislocated

“Leave it alone,” Nephrite hisses through clenched teeth. “I said it’s not that bad.”

Yes – ‘not that bad’ is a relative thing, after all. For a man who’s been beaten, stabbed, shocked, frozen, burned, and quite literally killed, an injured shoulder might very well be ‘not that bad.’ Except that he’s had it for three days now – his injuries used to heal in hours, when he was still pledged to the Dark Kingdom – and quite frankly, Makoto’s had it up to here with the constant glowering and the swears he thinks she doesn’t hear.

Harboring a Dark Kingdom fugitive is one thing; harboring an unrepentant _grouch_ is another.

So the grouch in question is sat forcefully down at the kitchen table, his jacket sloughed off and tossed over a chair in the living room, while Makoto stands over him and clucks her tongue.

“It’s definitely dislocated,” she says, one hand rolling back the sleeve of his undershirt to expose the offending shoulder. Honestly, she’s astounded it’s taken her this long to notice how bad this is: his skin is tender and mottled with bruises just a shade away from the purple of his shirt, and underneath that, there is something noticeably off about the joint itself, like a puzzle piece forced somewhere it almost fits, but not quite. “No wonder you’ve been so grumpy. Doesn’t this hurt?”

“No,” he grumbles, glaring in defiance at the indignity of it all.

Makoto raises an eyebrow, meets that glare head on, and pokes one of the slightly less awful looking bruises.

Nephrite jerks away with such violence that he nearly topples the chair, his good arm barely shooting out in time to stop himself from crashing to the floor. She’s positive that string of curses just wilted her plants a bit, too.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

He has to huff and puff and piece together what’s left of his pride before he can speak again, and even then his gaze skirts just below hers.

“Fine. So my shoulder’s injured,” he spits. “I fail to see how this affects you in any way.”

“Really? You really have no idea?” Makoto gestures in a wide circle to the walls around them. “I don’t live in a mansion, Nephrite. I can hear you groaning literally everywhere in this apartment, and that is all you’ve done for three days!” It’s her turn to huff now, and soon both her hands are secured sternly against her hips. “I agreed to let you stay here for a while. I didn’t agree to put my life on hold so you could bitch and moan at all hours of the night. I have _homework_.”

She swears she’s never seen a Shitennou look so offended before.

“Far be it from me to remind you we’re fighting a war,” he says, but his eyes draw even closer to the floor, and his tone is one of surrender. He can’t deny that the shoulder pain is…troubling, not in the least because it should have been well healed by now. Perhaps the schism with the Dark Kingdom has taken a greater toll on him than he expected – but what is there to do for it, other than to wait and pray for recovery?

“I’m going to pop it back in.”

Nephrite shoots bolt upright, as though someone casually brushed a live wire against his back.

“You’re going to _what_ –”

“You heard me, tennis coach,” Makoto says, sliding his sleeve back up to lightly test the swelling in his shoulder. “Ami showed me how to do it once. That way, you get a functional arm again, I get my 1 AM’s back, and no one has to drag Masato Sanjouin to the hospital.” She quirks her eyebrow again. “Unless that’s something you want?”

The Dark General says nothing for several moments, disbelieving eyes fixed on her face, too aghast to manage a single word. Finally – half out of pity, half to make sure she hasn’t gone and broken the poor man – she sighs and breaks the silence.

“Look,” she says. “It’s not going to be that bad, okay? Remember all that stuff you used to spout off all the time when we fought?” Back when they were just enemies – before feelings got involved, and everything got so complicated. “‘Nephrite, Shitennou of the Dark Kingdom, served Queen Beryl since ancient times, given my life in her service, blah blah blah.’” She has to restrain herself from making puppet gestures with one hand. “You’ve been through worse is what I’m saying. You can take it, I promise.”

To say that Nephrite relaxes would be a bit strong, but a bit of the horrified suspicion leaves his face, and with a begrudging sigh, he eases his shoulder a few millimeters closer to her hands.

“What do I have to do?” he says, barely above a grumble in the back of his throat.

“Lean back a bit and hold your arm straight,” Makoto replies, circling around so she can get the proper grip. The angle’s going to be a bit tricky, with how their heights interact, especially while he’s sitting – she gets down on one knee as he follows her instructions, holding the affected arm for her to grab. For all the attempted nonchalance and bluster, his face is several shades paler than usual.

“It’s going to be okay, Nephrite,” she assures him again, and she can’t help the crooked smile that tugs at her lips. There’s something oddly endearing about how bad he is with pain – as though, after all those months of chipping away at his evil and oh-so-intimidating exterior, she’s finally reached the man inside him. A man with petty quirks and flaws, who’d rather suffer in silence for days on end than accept any kind of help, and who can’t work an oven without three different kinds of dark magic, but a real man. Perhaps even a good man, someday.

She hopes.

“I’m going to yank on the count of three,” she says. “One, two –”

And Nephrite’s world explodes as muscle untangles and bone crunches back into place all at once.

“Damnit! God _damnit_ _!_ ”

He slams his fist against the table once, twice, three times as he rides the waves of pain that radiate from his shoulder, gritting his teeth to stifle the half-scream half-groan that burbles up in his throat.

“You said on the count of three!” Nephrite accuses wildly, flailing for the first thing he can think to say. “You didn’t give me any warn–”

The words die in his mouth as he turns his head and sees what’s in front of him. There, several feet further away from him, stands Makoto, one hand held over a rapidly brightening patch of red skin, the faintest glimmer of tears in her emerald eyes.

…he had jerked his hand away rather suddenly, hadn’t he?

In moments, the Shitennou’s on his feet again, moving to close the space between them, summoning the Dark Crystal without thinking.

“Makoto – stars, I didn’t mean – ”

Radiating magic, he lifts his hand to the tender spot on her cheek.

“I can fix – ”

“No.”

The power behind that word, low in her throat and steeled with anger, stops him in his tracks. Before he can protest, her own hand darts out like a viper and knocks the Crystal away, sending it spiraling away to collide with the wall and clatter unceremoniously against the tile.

“As long as you’re under my roof,” she says, with only the faintest tremble of effort, “you _live_ with the consequences of your tantrums, Nephrite.”

He stares at her, opening and shutting his mouth, hoping that some words may fall out to repair whatever damage he’s done today. They do not come soon enough to stop Makoto from whirling on her heel and marching to her room, slamming her door just before it can muffle a strained sob.

They do not come in the next few minutes, as he stands gaping in the living room, his mind racing through the thousand different ways this could have gone, and how of course he manages the way that hurt her. That’s all he’s ever done.

They do not come even when he sits down with a pen and paper, throwing empty platitudes and apologies down in ink before shredding each sheet and dumping it in the trash. Stupid – how could he have lashed out like that when he knew she was so close –

His shoulder doesn’t even hurt anymore.

* * *

The words do come, but they come at 1 AM, on the back of a hesitant knock and several seconds of nervous hand wringing. They are not poetic, they are not what she deserves, and he cannot think of a way they can truly undo what happened that afternoon. But they do come. Quiet and unassuming, the very opposite of what he is.

“Makoto…” he says. “I’m sorry.”


End file.
